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The state legislature sets an ambitious goal
It all starts with the legislature, which in 2004 created the
Washington Families Fund (WFF), followed by the passage of the
Homeless Housing and Assistance Act (HB 2163) in 2005 (see
related article, WFF and the Homeless
Housing and Assistance Act: A brief background). These acts have been a tremendous boost to
everyone in the state who is fighting to end homelessness.
WFF has raised $12 million for service-enriched housing, and HB
2163 set the ambitious goal of reducing homelessness in
Washington State by at least 50%. It’s not just a statewide
goal, but applies to each individual county. Because both
initiatives are administered by the Washington State Department
of Community, Trade and Economic Development (CTED), it makes
sense to start with CTED Director, Juli Wilkerson, and Will
Graham, who serves as Assistant Director for Housing.
Housing at the forefront
While CTED has numerous responsibilities in addition to housing,
Juli notes that WFF and HB 2163 show that “the issue of housing
is coming to the forefront at the state level both with the
legislature and the governor.” While there has been a lot of
excitement about new ideas and innovative approaches, Juli
emphasizes that some of our longstanding programs will probably
have the most impact as we work to house the homeless.
"HGAP is really about testing
promising approaches: Seeing if they can get implemented,
and seeing if they can get results—on the legal end, the
policy end, and specifically into rural entities.”
JULI WILKERSON, Director, Washington State
Department of Community, Trade and Economic
Development (CTED)
First and foremost is the Housing Trust Fund (HTF), whose
administration is a core part of CTED’s mission. The legislature
added $130 million to the HTF during the 2007 session. Governor
Gregoire’s latest budget proposes increasing the HTF by another
$50 million this year—all dedicated to creating and maintaining
safe, decent, and affordable housing in Washington State.
Unfortunately, temporary shelters remain an important need—even
as we work toward long-term solutions. The Emergency Shelter
Assistance Program provides a place to sleep for more than
45,000 homeless individuals each year. CTED also administers the
Homeless Management Information System that provides real-time
client level data on homeless people across the state.
 Next come CTED’s responsibilities as head of the governor’s
Interagency Council on Homelessness. In signing HB 2163,
Governor Gregoire noted the need for state agencies to work
together including the Departments of Corrections (DOC), Health
(DOH), Social and Health Services (DSHS), Veterans Affairs (DVA),
the Employment Security Department (ESD), and the Office of
Financial Management (OFM). CTED heads the council on the
governor’s behalf, with the mandate “to create an appropriate
forum for cross-agency coordination, collaboration, and
planning.”
HB 2163 is actually a two-pronged initiative. After taking 2%
for administration costs, 60% of the revenue collected goes
directly to the counties for their programs. That leaves
40%—much of which is distributed by CTED as local grants to
counties and agencies for three-year homeless pilot programs
through the Homelessness Grant Assistance Program (HGAP). CTED
also applies this funding for technical assistance to counties.
Let’s take the 60% for counties first, then turn to the HGAP
pilot programs.
Counties are key players
CTED has contracted with nonprofit affordable housing consultant
Common Ground to serve as the lead technical assistance provider
to counties implementing HB 2163. As such, Common Ground
Executive Director Lynn Davison has a keen view of where we are
right now with our 10-Year Plans, and the many miles that
remain. She believes HB 2163 provides a well-crafted strategy,
both because it identifies Washington’s counties as key to
planning, funding, and accountability for plans to end
homelessness—and because it gives local governments flexibility
in how the funding can be put to best use.
“Integration into the
local government world is going to take time. And I
think we will begin to see greater and greater fruits of
that strategy to enlist the counties.”
LYNN DAVISON, Executive Director, Common
Ground
Along with so many others who have contributed to this
newsletter, Lynn credits Rep. Mark Miloscia for his heroic
advocacy for the homeless and for this bill, along with an
astute understanding of how identifying the counties as pivotal
will be critical to success. “That was a change from the past in
approaches to homelessness,” she points out. “Clearly it was
very important for Rep. Miloscia. And I think it will serve his
long-term history well.”
With the addition of the monies from HB 1359 to the HB 2163
funding source, Lynn says, “counties are getting enough
resources now, and have something to work with. And most of them
have stepped up and said ‘we’ll take that money.’ In doing so,
they acknowledge that they have a homeless problem—and they have
a plan to fix it.”
Still, Lynn acknowledges that there remains a wide diversity in
the level of response and commitment among counties. “But
integration into the local government world is going to take
time. And I think we will begin to see greater and greater
fruits of that strategy to enlist the counties.”
Flexibility is a big plus to local governments. This funding is
not restricted to capital, or operating subsidies, or services:
it can be any of these three or a combination of them. This
gives counties the autonomy to solve their own homeless
challenges. And that’s what they’re doing. “There are some
communities and counties in the state that can meet that 50%
goal,” Lynn says. “Some are getting close to that already.
Others will be harder-pressed to do so—in the larger
communities, where more is needed, that’s where you’re going to
see the greatest challenges.”
HGAP: A big victory for systems change
Despite the importance of these 2163 and 1359 monies being
utilized directly by the counties, Lynn also credits CTED with
using a portion of the grant funds at its disposal from HB 2163
to create big-picture solutions that can serve as catalysts for
changing the face of how we approach homelessness. CTED is
utilizing the Homelessness Grant Assistance Program (HGAP) to
foster systems change.
HGAP was created by CTED to fund capital operating services in
areas where communities bring together partners from all the
systems that work with homeless people—or many of them—like
jails and prisons, employment services, health services, social
service programs for people with disabilities, and schools. In
this way, CTED is funding a much smaller number of projects,
more deeply. “They are funding programs that could be a
different way of doing business,” Lynn says. “Because at the end
of the day, we need a whole lot more housing, and we need some
different ways of doing business at the system level.
“I think we should acknowledge CTED for this,” Lynn adds. “It’s
an important step in trying to move a whole system in an
entirely different direction. I think it’s been a big victory.
It’s too soon to tell with these projects, the second round is
just being funded now. But I think that kind of strategy is the
highest and best use of the resources they manage.”
HGAP as incubator
 Juli says that these three-year HGAP grants are important both
for generating new ideas and for providing state agencies with
real-time experience in working collaboratively. “HGAP is really
about testing promising approaches: Seeing if they can get
implemented, and seeing if they can get results—on the legal
end, the policy end, and specifically into rural entities. We’re
also looking at trying to demonstrate cross-system integration
between traditional homeless efforts, affordable housing
efforts, and other systems.”
Going forward, CTED will use objective, third-party evaluators
to see which of the HGAP approaches are most effective in
reducing homelessness—and taxpayer costs.
In fact, Tedd Kelleher, who serves as implementation manager for
2163—including the HGAP program—reports that CTED is investing
heavily in “not just measuring these programs, but making sure
people can reconstruct what happened.” All of this information,
Tedd says, will be available on CTED’s website. This includes
“the documentation of HGAP projects in terms of timeline,
process, and players. The contracting, sub-contracts, related
policies and procedures, assessment tools .... Whose idea was
it? Did it start with the county commissioners? Does that relate
to what we’re doing? What sort of matching resources did they
use?”
Bringing state agencies together to build capacity in smaller
counties
 One major opportunity that HGAP has helped to create in smaller
counties is teaching local governments and agencies to become
stand-alone developers of permanent supportive housing. In
concert with CTED, Common Ground and nonprofit houser and
housing development consultant Building Changes are performing
targeted technical assistance.
These organizations are about to initiate a six-month training
institute for teams from eight counties in the state. Most of
these counties, like tiny Pacific County (pop. 22,000), haven’t
previously been able to support permanent supportive housing for
the homeless because of their size. The goal is to help these
teams bring a project forward to the point of financing. “It’s a
big capacity-building project designed to help communities form
teams to create multiple supportive housing projects,” Lynn
says.
Funding is coming from CTED, the DSHS’s Mental Health Division,
and WFF. The Program of Assertive Community Treatment (PACT)
approach applied by
 DSHS’s Mental Health Division with HGAP
funding will be tied into supportive housing created through
capital financing from CTED’s operating and maintenance program.
Juli notes that, if successful, this program should reduce the
need for state-funded psychiatric hospital beds, which, in turn,
should lower the cost of caring for the homeless mentally ill.
“This is modeling collaboration at the funder level, focusing on
building the skills to do a pipeline of permanent supportive
housing—the housing that we have the least of within our
homeless networks across the state, and what the literature
shows is the most successful in those communities for ending
homelessness,” Lynn points out.
Tedd Kelleher adds that this new effort is also exciting to him
in that it’s bringing state agencies together in a way they
haven’t experienced before. “The way that both HGAP funding and
the Interagency Council on Homelessness are structured give us a
tangible reason to regularly coordinate with our other state
partners—whereas historically, these discussions tended to be
more academic. There wasn’t that tangible driver.”
Leadership and collaboration make a difference
What are some of the preliminary conclusions we can draw from
our battle against homelessness to date? First, revenue
opportunities like those that HB 2163 and 1359 have provided are
certainly a big boost to counties in addressing their
homelessness challenges. But clearly, leadership, collaboration,
and the creative application of resources are also critical in
counties’ meeting their 10-Year Goals. At the local and project
level, many of the communities that have had a track record of
good collaboration are further ahead in addressing homeless
issues.
Lynn points to Whatcom, Clark, and Clallam Counties, where
efforts have been “built on strong local systems.” There are
other counties that seemingly hadn’t had homelessness issues on
their radar previously, but are now “really coming to the
table.” She also singles out Benton and Franklin Counties for
stepping up to the homeless challenge—I’ll highlight their
approaches below.
Looking ahead, Lynn sees other signs of encouragement. On a
mental health systems level statewide, service funders and
policy makers are recognizing the importance of housing as well
as services in order to meet the outcomes of the people they
serve.
But many hurdles remain across the state, and creating housing,
and cultivating existing housing, is fundamental to this work.
Lynn points to the continued need to recruit, and support
communications with, private landlords. “We can’t build our way
out of this. We have to find a way to access rental housing that
already exists. A big challenge in every county in the state is
how to figure out how to do that more effectively.” She points
to agencies that are developing private landlord incentives,
including getting response services for the clients living in
their housing up to 24/7. A case in point is Sound Mental Health
in King County, which has a long history of developing effective
working relationships with private landlords, including “serving
some fairly high-risk homeless people,” she says.
“Washington State is out in front of the majority of states in
its statewide response to homelessness and I think we’re quite a
long way from getting to the goal that we’ve established for
ourselves ... both of these are true,” Lynn concludes. “We have
strong momentum, and we have distributed our efforts across the
state better than ever before. All that’s good. But we’re
talking about homelessness, and in order to address and
eliminate homelessness, people have to have places to live. We
don’t have enough of that. It would be wrong to let anybody
think that just managing the resources better will get us to our
goal. That will not be sufficient.”
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A tale of two eastern Washington counties
Every county is unique in terms of their homelessness challenges
and the use they’re making of the resources available to meet
those challenges. It helps enormously to have community leaders
who truly take homelessness to heart, and are going to great
lengths to do what it takes to change the status quo.
Benton and Franklin Counties: An inspired partnership
One such inspired partnership actually involves two counties:
Benton and Franklin, in southeastern Washington. These counties,
which face off across the Columbia River, are home to the
Tri-Cities: Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland. They have elected
officials who have moved homeless issues to the front of their
agendas. And county residents are also fortunate in their local
nonprofit leadership: Judith Gidley, executive director of
Benton Franklin Community Action Committee (BFCAC), has been
focused on homelessness since she took the job nine years ago.
JUDITH GIDLEY, Executive Director, Benton
Franklin Community Action Committee (BFCAC)
“When I came here, there were so many agencies doing so many
things in the community,” Judith recalls. “I made a promise to
the board that I would look for gaps in services. One of those
was the homeless issue. No one was taking it on.” Judith wrote
her agency’s first grant that provided services out of
McKinney-Vento funding. BFCAC has since also taken on
administering tenant-based rental assistance programs and the
THOR (Transitional Housing, Operating, and Rent) program. When
HB 2163 came along, she was chair of the Benton Franklin Housing
Network, which had just completed a five-year homeless plan for
the bi-county area.
Benton County Commissioner Claude Oliver remembers first meeting
Judith back in 2005 at a kick-off session for local officials on
implementing the county 10-Year Plans for HB 2163. “Ted Kelleher
from CTED introduced us. Judith has been inspiring. Working with
people dedicated to making something happen really makes the
work a lot more fun. And you get a lot more done.”
CLAUDE OLIVER, Benton County Commissioner
At the outset of the 10-year planning process, Claude and Judith
worked alongside Commissioner Frank Brock of Franklin County,
who retired one year ago. Since his departure, Commissioner Rick
Miller has stepped up to lead Franklin County’s efforts. “Our
two counties span cities and rural areas,” explains Judith.
“There are different kinds of homelessness here, and the
Tri-Cities are connected by bridges across the Columbia River.
The migration of our homeless populations goes back and forth.”
Each county created their own contract for providing services
under HB 2163, and contracted with BFCAC to provide those
services. Home Base, created by BFCAC, is a major component of
the counties’ approach to homelessness. It’s a one-stop triage
system. “Under Home Base we have all our satellite agencies that
provide services connected via the Internet, which means there’s
no wrong door. Someone can go to any one of these agencies,
start the application process, and get the right referral,” says
Judith.
Another major intervention that Judith and her community
partners have pushed through in recent years is more housing and
services for homeless persons who are mentally ill, including
securing state and federal funding for permanent rental
subsidies. Last year, Benton and Franklin Counties succeeded in
reducing homelessness by about 22%. Judith says one of the
things last year’s homeless count told her is that her agency
needs to focus more on homeless youth. Of the 780 people who
were counted as homeless in her counties in January 2007, 109
were between the ages of 18 and 23; 82 were 12 to 17 years old.
“Helping homeless youth is our next goal,” she says.
Housing for ex-offenders: An awakened awareness
But they’re already well launched in efforts in a complementary
direction. In 2006, the two counties applied—and won—significant
funding from HGAP for a pilot program that aims to take on the
revolving door that sits between jails and homelessness. Claude,
whose office overlooks the Benton County Jail, puts it this way:
“My office overlooks the exit of our ‘Benton County Hotel’; many
times I would see young men and women come out. And I would
think, I hope they’ll hit off on a better formula this next
time.” Often, these people had nowhere to go, and too often,
they ended up back where they started. What he saw, he says, led
him to conclude, “Couldn’t we do things better?
“We saw the need to start planning processes for people exiting
our jails to connect them with community resources that
existed—but many times were just disconnected from the folks and
the process,” Claude says. That might mean a bus pass for people
who had no transportation, or following up with continuing
medications for a person with a mental illness. It could be a
substance abuse program—or a place to call home. On any given
day in Benton County, roughly 50 people are coming into the
jail, and 50 others are coming out. “We saw the need to get in
the jail and interview people before they got released.”
The HGAP grant is for providing housing and services to 68 jail
inmates along with families of those in jail who would otherwise
be homeless. Of the $540,000 total, $210,000 has been kicked in
by the counties, and $30,000 by BFCAC. “We already have our 68
inmates enrolled in the program,” says Judith. “A good majority
of them are in housing already.” The objective has been to also
serve the families of those jailed inmates who were in danger of
losing their homes. “While the inmate is in jail, this helps the
family stay stable, and gives the person a stable home to go
back to.” The project includes rent subsidies, case management,
transportation, rental deposits, filing fees, lost document
recovery, and life skills training.
“My take on this three-year sprint is that it establishes a role
model that I think should be replicated throughout the nation.
It’s effective in getting people placed in housing early on,
effective in getting case managers around people if they’re open
to that, and effective in equipping law enforcement with skills
training,” Claude says.
Building good examples
This HGAP pilot program is just one piece of the systems
overhaul that Judith, Claude and Commissioner Rick Miller of
Franklin County are working to implement. It includes educating
police officers and sheriffs about the appropriate referrals for
homeless people in crisis; linking services; pulling in agencies
to work together; proactively working with homeless people who
are mentally ill or dealing with substance abuse issues. They’re
in the process of creating a crisis response consolidation
center for both counties.
RICK MILLER, Franklin County Commissioner
And there’s been some push back, Claude and Rick admit. For
example, during the January 2007 homeless point-in-time count,
jail officials in the Franklin County Jail wouldn’t permit
volunteers to enter and interview the inmates about their
homeless status. This year, Rick says, they’re going to get in.
When he left farming a little over a year ago to take on his
commissioner role, Rick had been somewhat skeptical about what
local governments can do about homelessness. But his
participation in last year’s count, he says, “was a real
eye-opener.”
Eighty percent of his county’s budget, Rick says, goes to
criminal justice. “Overcrowding in our jail is a big problem. It
was built for 110 inmates. Since then they’ve doubled the beds.
Sometimes we have to put three people in a cell. The mentally
ill shouldn’t be there to begin with, and preventing
homelessness for released inmates will help curb recidivism.”
Claude agrees. “The law and justice portions of the budget just
absolutely eat us alive at the county level, and to a lesser
extent, the city level today. When you add that portion of the
budget up, and you add the costs for courts, and prosecution,
and incarceration, it’s absolutely dizzying, in terms of how
those costs have escalated. But with our homeless housing
10-Year Plan, and with the inmate transition plan through HGAP,
we’ve been able to bring folks together to make the community
work more effectively.
“I think every county in the nation in the next 10 years is
going to be strongly looking at how can they align their
services this way. The bureaucrats may not accept that with open
arms, but let’s build good examples.”
King County: A confluence of efforts
King County is another county that has a track record of good
collaboration. But Washington State’s largest county has much
more at stake. King County’s population of 1.8-plus million
outstrips the combined population of about 226,000 for Benton
and Franklin Counties. During the 2007 point-in-time count,
which includes Seattle, there were 7,839 people counted as
homeless in King County.
Homelessness ranks as a top concern
One huge positive is that, collectively, the people who live
here rank homelessness in the top three of important issues
facing King County. The same can be said of many of the county’s
most influential public officials.
BILL BLOCK, Project Director, Committee to
End Homelessness in King County (CEHKC)
Bill Block, project director of the Committee to End
Homelessness in King County (CEHKC), has done a masterful job of
inviting people and constituencies into the conversation about
what they can do about solving homelessness in their
communities. He’s also pulled together a governing board of
highly effective leaders, what he calls a “confluence of
efforts,” including King County Executive Ron Sims, Seattle
Mayor Greg Nickels and former Mayor Norm Rice, former Governor
Mike Lowry, Nordstrom President Blake Nordstrom, Car Toys
Chairman and CEO Dan Brettler, King County Sheriff Sue Rahr,
United Way of King County President Jon Fine—and many other key
players.
“King County is making progress,” Bill says. “We created 526
housing units for the homeless in 2007, and have about a
thousand in the pipeline. These are permanent units.” The total
number of housing units that have been brought on line since
King County’s 10-Year Plan was adopted is approximately 1,489.
“It’s still not the level we need,” Bill says. “We need 950
homes a year to make the goals of the plan.” He explains that
he’s now discussing with CEHKC’s governing board what other
sources are available to them.
Moving forward on many fronts
“The commitment is still there,” Bill says. He points to plenty
of actions and accomplishments to be celebrated, including:
Unprecedented new and ongoing resources for homeless programs
and affordable housing. Bill reels off several of the many
positives:
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The City of Seattle’s $86 million low-income housing levy,
passed in 2002.
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The United Way of King County’s $25 million campaign to end
chronic homelessness, announced in mid-2007.
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$130 million was added to the state’s Housing Trust Fund
during the 2007 legislative session.
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King County recently passed the 1/10th of 1% sales tax for
mental health and chemical dependency treatment.
Great results coming from innovative Housing First programs.
Recently published studies of the City of Seattle’s Housing
First programs at 1811 Eastlake and Plymouth on Stewart [see
related article] demonstrate that permanent housing for people who are
chronically homeless and very high users of crisis-treatment
services turns lives around—and results in significant savings
in emergency and health services. Last month, Mayor Nickels
released one-year cost savings figures for the two programs:
$3.2 million. The City has already funded 215 such housing units
and a total of 1,000 are planned countywide under the 10-Year
Plan.
Nationally recognized homeless programs across the board.
From helping homeless people succeed in securing jobs to serving
homeless veterans to working to prevent homelessness in our
youth, King County has organizations and programs that other
municipalities across the country are looking to for effective
ideas and solutions.
Bill is also excited about the HGAP funding King County has
received for a new pilot project in South King County, what he
calls “graduation units.” Bill asks: “How do you create an
environment in which you help people to stay connected to the
community that helps them to be stable—when they move to housing
that doesn’t have 24/7 staffing?” HGAP is providing $1.5 million
over three years to this project. It will house an additional 25
chronically homeless individuals, while helping 50 people who
have become stable in service-intensive housing to graduate to
homes with lower services at a lower cost. This will open the
door to an additional 50 people who can move into those
service-intensive units.
CEHKC is moving forward on many other fronts. The group’s
Prevention Task Force is working to create a cohesive,
integrated regional homeless prevention system; they’re planning
to apply for funding for implementation in the next round of
state funding. The Landlord Liaison Project is working to create
new sources of housing by bringing landlords and service
providers together. The goal is to negotiate terms and provide
incentives and protections that will assuage landlords’
concerns.
This interview with Bill took place late afternoon on Christmas
Eve: He’s working tremendously hard on this, as are countless
others. King County’s 10-Year Plan calls for securing 9,500 new
units of housing for homeless people—if it can be done, they’re
the team I’d choose.
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Research outcomes are helping to shape new approaches to ending
family homelessness
The origins of the Sound Families Initiative can be traced back
to a question asked by Melinda Gates: What can we do for
families in crisis? Melinda’s question led to the commitment of
more than $40 million by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to
create transitional supportive housing for families coming out
of crisis who are homeless and trying to regain stability in
their lives.
Sound Families’ mandate gave our state compelling, documented
results. This initiative paved the way for other philanthropic
organizations to pledge to pool their resources to truly make a
difference for homeless families. State legislators had the
insight to sign on with the Washington Families Fund (WFF) and
to highly effective programs that met a critical need and would
be matched by private dollars. Now, the research generated on
the participating families in Sound Families from 2000 to
mid-2007 is influencing how the state’s supportive housing
programs are being designed and funded.
Two tiers of funding: A new round of grants for WFF
Just last month, the latest funding round for WFF was announced.
The current balance of the fund, $5.5 million, was allocated to
14 projects across the state that represent 225 housing units
for homeless families. These are 10-year funding commitments.
For the first time, the funding has been tiered in two service
levels: moderate and high.
This change is the result of a great deal of research, thought,
and planning. Those involved anticipate better outcomes for
families—and an ongoing longitudinal evaluation with the high
service-level participants will to add to what we know about
serving homeless families.
As the sub-contractor with CTED for the Fund, you might call
Building Changes the chief cook and bottle-washer intermediary
for WFF. This organization administers and evaluates WFF
programs, provides technical assistance, and liaises with
funders in the private sector. Known as AIDS Housing of
Washington from its founding in 1988 until late last year, the
re-christening to Building Changes reflects its team’s expertise
and involvement, which have broadened to meet the needs of all
of the constituencies in Washington State that are impacted by
homelessness.
"This level of
partnership is really quite amazing. And as someone who
has had the opportunity to work around the country, I
can say that in Washington State, there is truly a
profound commitment to ending homelessness.”
BETSY LIEBERMAN, Executive Director, Building
Changes
Building Changes Executive Director Betsy Lieberman is excited
about the potential of the higher service level. “This was a
response by us to both Sound Families’ evaluation data, plus
what we were seeing with WFF,” Betsy explains. “Very few of the
programs around the state were designed to serve families who
truly have chronic homelessness issues, whether it be long-term
issues of mental illness, substance abuse, involvement with CPS,
corrections .... The national data show that about 80% of
homeless families need some assistance with services, plus
employment—but only about 15 or 20% are what you might call
chronically homeless.
“All families are not the same. We want to use resources more
judiciously. This 15 or 20% have so many issues in their lives.
They need permanent housing, and services that can evolve as
people become more stabilized. But we really needed to commit
ourselves to working with organizations across the state to
provide this high level of services.”
Making a positive impact on national homeless policy
Last spring, to get at what a program like this should look
like, Building Changes invited about 15 organizations across the
state to work on planning and design. “It was a really profound
process,” Betsy says. These organizations were paid a consulting
fee to commit to attend all six meetings—and do their homework.
Ten organizations signed on.
“WFF is funding up to $7,500 per unit per year for the higher
level of services,” Betsy explains. “It requires a
dollar-for-dollar match, and so we asked that organizations have
the ability to access Medicaid or another ongoing funding
source.” In most cases, the partnerships were bringing together
mental health providers and other service and housing providers.
In the funding round announced last month, five high-service
projects in five counties were funded: Sound Mental Health in
King County, Community Services Northwest in Clark, Serenity
House in Clallam, Volunteers of America in Skagit, and the
Women’s Resource Center in Chelan/Douglas Counties.
The evaluation data generated by these programs will provide a
level of information and detail that hasn’t been done—even
nationally, Betsy explains. Families make up a much smaller
portion of the chronic population than individuals, and as a
consequence, they’ve received less focus. “We want to do
something that will both help us understand how to do this well
in Washington State, but also have a positive impact on national
policy around serving homeless families. It’s so uncommon to see
families remain intact when they have a wide range of problems.”
Generosity begins at home
As a state, we’ve been very fortunate in our philanthropists and
foundations; private giving has been fundamental to WFF’s
success. WFF now has 18 private funding partners. To date, these
partners have contributed $6 million of the $12 million that WFF
has passed on to organizations that serve homeless families.
“This level of partnership is really quite amazing,” Betsy
concludes. “And as someone who has had the opportunity to work
around the country, I can say that in Washington State, there is
a truly profound commitment to ending homelessness. From every
aspect—whether you’re looking at philanthropy, corrections, DSHS,
housing providers like our public housing authorities,
government funders—people are saying: ‘We have an opportunity,
and a responsibility.”
The Gates Foundation: Ending homelessness is of great interest
In July 2007, Sound Families’ last round of new grants for
housing creation “got us up to 1,445 units,” says David
Wertheimer. David is senior program officer, Pacific Northwest
Initiative, for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. With that
total, he says, “We achieved our goal—the Initiative was
primarily a housing production initiative.”
"We are very excited
today to be much more involved in a new set of
activities: Trying to end—not just
manage—homelessness.”
DAVID WERTHEIMER, Senior Program Officer,
Pacific Northwest Initiative, Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation
But even though the Sound Families Initiative is winding down,
this by no means signals that the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation is shifting its focus away from family homelessness.
Sound Families, which focused on King, Pierce, and Snohomish
Counties, is just one part of Gates Foundation’s response. This
is “a strategy area of great interest” to the Pacific Northwest
program, David says. The program spans all of Washington State
as well as the greater Portland area, including Multnomah,
Klackmas, and Washington Counties in Oregon.
When the initial work to create Sound Families was launched,
David explains, “the goal at the time was not focused on ending
homelessness—in fact, the language of the field then centered
around managing it. We are very excited today to be much more
involved in a new set of activities: Trying to end—not just
manage—homelessness.”
One very important part of the Sound Families work has been its
evaluation component. Since its creation in 2000, in
collaboration with the University of Washington School of Social
Work’s Northwest Institute for Children and Families, the
families participating in these supportive, transitional housing
programs have been the focus of a wealth of evaluative data. The
first installment of the final report was published late last
year.
Two levels of data were pursued. One level has yielded broad
features and results for all the participating families. The
second dataset is longitudinal, and provides quantitative and
qualitative data on 203 families in 10 programs who were
interviewed while in the program, at exit, and at multiple
points after exit. This has allowed researchers to take a deeper
look at families’ experiences and trends over time.
The Five S’s of meeting the needs of homeless families
“The findings from that evaluation are instructive,” David says,
“both about what worked well with Sound Families, as well as
where we fell short in terms of meeting the needs of some of the
families that were in the program.” This has led to the creation
of what he calls The Five S’s— five critical components to
ending family homelessness:
Stability: The family needs housing.
Support: Families need “an involved case manager,
someone who is there to help make sure that they receive the
services that are tailored to their needs.”
Salary: Families need a living wage to be able to
move on to permanent housing without ongoing subsidies and
supports over time.
Subsidy: Section 8 vouchers have been a critical part
of the Sound Families model. While they’re transitioning and
their economic earning potential is increasing, families
often need the support of subsidized housing in the interim
period “to help families get to a living wage,” says David.
Synergy: “Families need an entire system that’s
pulling with them, working to bring multiple sectors of the
system into synergy. Whether it’s housing providers or
service providers—including workforce development,
childcare, domestic violence, and/or mental health
workers—all of those different sectors need to pull together
with the family, to help them succeed.” The greater the
complexity of issues and problems, the more integrated and
holistic are the responses needed.
“When we look back at Sound Families over the last seven years,
we think that we got stability and support right,” David says.
“Housing plus services works. Many of us made that assumption
going into this initiative, but there was very little data to
confirm it. Now we have that documentation.
“We also found the synergy piece was very important. We were
very excited and pleased to be part of this large partnership of
players and systems that made Sound Families successful,
particularly the participation of the housing authorities in the
Puget Sound region. In fact, no one system or player can do this
work by themselves.”
What needs to happen next
“But where we’ve fallen short is, in some ways, one of the most
important parts of the story,” David adds. “On the salary area,
we need to do better.” One of the conclusions coming out of the
longitudinal study is that wage earners in families who are
recovering from homelessness seem to hit a wage ceiling of about
$11/hour. “And that will keep them in poverty,” he says. “That
will keep them dependent on continuing housing subsidies, and
does not promote their self-sufficiency as families.”
Developing Community Employment Pathways, a Gates-funded report
that I’ll talk about in the next section, is one example of how
new synergies in addressing homeless families’ challenges are
moving the ‘Salary’ piece of those ‘Five S’s’ towards viable
solutions. What Gates is now asking, David says, is “How do we
promote still more synergy in building towards a system where
families are truly moving out of poverty to self-sufficiency?”
According to David, another key finding from the University of
Washington studies is that about 25% of the families in the
Sound Families program did not graduate. “While a 75% success
rate is promising and exciting, that 25% is a great concern to
us. We need to do better than that. That’s a lot of families.”
Examining the data, it’s become clear that in many instances,
these families had more complex issues and needs than those who
completed the program.
“They didn’t fail the program, the program failed them,” he
emphasizes. “We were not necessarily providing the level of
support and services they needed—which is not to blame providers
or partners, because they weren’t necessarily adequately funded
to provide that level of support, expertise, and training.” In
fact, this realization is what led directly to the new
high-service level for families within WFF that Betsy talked
about earlier: the effort to accurately match services with
needs, along with the new evaluation component with these
families, to track their outcomes.
The 1445 units of housing created by Sound Families are now
owned and operated by more than 40 grantees. One of the last
stages of Sound Families’ activities will occur over the next
year: a series of smaller grants to grantees, partners, and
providers, “to help them think about sustainability issues,”
David says. “How do we keep this going over time? We want to
support them as they’re thinking about maintaining
organizational capacity, sustaining the important work that
they’re doing.
“WFF continues to move forward. And at the Gates Foundation,
we’re very excited about moving forward with these partnerships
that have been created, with all of the synergy and energy that
exists around this issue right now in determining collectively
what needs to happen next and how to do it.” He says they will
make some kind of “gentle announcement” at the conference this
month, but are not officially launching new strategies until
mid-2008. “There’s a lot of conversation, and a lot of
collective work needs to occur. Stay tuned for details.”
top
An employment epiphany
David and the Gates Foundation are not alone in realizing that
even our best efforts to combine housing with social services
are not enough. Employment opportunities are needed as well if
we want to create stable long-term solutions for homeless
people.
Developing community employment pathways
It sounds elementary—almost embarrassingly so. But in truth, the
scope of the problem, compared to the resources available, had
limited us to taking one step at a time. David recalls attending
a meeting in King County in 2005 “when we first brought together
all of the lead folks working in supportive housing and
services. We sat down in the same room—all of these people who
had been working for years and years on workforce development
issues—and realized that many of the people around the table
didn’t know each other.” The group resolved then and there to
“bring these two sandboxes together and work collaboratively. It
was a complex task, trying to bring together huge silos of
supportive systems. We asked ourselves: How do we break down the
walls? How do we make change happen?”
MARK PUTNAM, Manager of Community Initiatives,
Building Changes
The first step in answering this question was to study the
employment problem and form a plan of attack. Initial funding
came from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as part of the
Taking Healthcare Home Initiative. Washington State was one of
eight sites nationally, and the Gates Foundation provided
funding to produce the final report. Entitled Developing
Community Employment Pathways for Homeless Job Seekers in King
County and Washington State, the report’s principal authors were
David Wertheimer; Mark Putnam at Building Changes; Bill Rumpf
and Tina Shamseldin at City of Seattle Office of Housing; and
John Rio, a nationally respected consultant with Advocates for
Human Potential, based in White Plains, New York.
"Our research shows
the importance of employment. It helps engage people
in their housing; it’s part of their recovery. It
builds in more supports for them.”
TINA SHAMSELDIN, Taking Health, Care Home
Coordinator, City of Seattle Office of Housing
I spoke at length with Mark and Tina about the employment issue.
They believe that, since its distribution in April 2007,
Developing Community Employment Pathways
(PDF) has begun to bring
about “systems change” and “boundary spanning” in Seattle and
throughout Washington State. As Mark explains, “We really have
brought together, in our community, employment and homeless
housing and service providers. People are talking—at the
director level and at the case manager level. Employment is on
everybody’s radar now, including the funders.”
Key findings
The report
is full of excellent research and thought-provoking suggestions.
I’d like to highlight three points that I think are particularly
important.
-
20% of homeless people work and most want to work.
Homelessness is not a “lifestyle choice,” and most of those
who are capable of working would do so in order to put a
roof over their head.
-
Employment is key to breaking the cycle of chronic
homelessness. Conventional wisdom in the field holds that
“employment can be stressful and cause for relapse” into
homelessness. However, as Tina points out, “Our research
shows the importance of employment. It helps engage people
in their housing; it’s part of their recovery. It builds in
more supports for them.”
-
A flexible combination of housing, supportive services, and
employment is needed. Right now, the emphasis is on Housing
First. Substance abuse and mental health treatment can help
ready homeless people for employment. Then it becomes
possible for higher functioning individuals to move into
independent living, making room for newly homeless people,
or those who need a higher level of support.
Next steps on employment
Mark and Tina are pleased that their colleagues and partners are
getting on board. “There’s a building momentum of interest in
doing employment,” say Tina. “Now we’re looking at the
possibility of expanding our sources to include funders of
employment. United Way is already at the table and King County
is too.” She adds that future RFPs may well include not only
housing and services but also employment.
 Currently, Tina and Mark are working on designing a pilot
program for the Seattle metropolitan area. Although planning is
still in the early stages, it will definitely incorporate the
concept of vocationalization into the homelessness solution
paradigm. As Mark explains, “Vocationalization is the process of
creating a culture where work is expected. It’s normal and
encouraged by your neighbors as well as staff within the
building. It encourages thinking about how to become more
productive and having clients mentor and support others.”
Of course, homeless people vary in their levels of skill and
capacity, so a broad range of working situations needs to be
available. Whether it’s a full-time job, part-time work, or day
labor a couple of times per week—all of these would be accepted
as successful outcomes within the vocationalized culture.
Right now, a supportive housing pilot program is underway in
Portland, Oregon that includes onsite employment services. Tina
says she’s observing the project closely. “We’re hoping to learn
from them and do something similar in King County. Our goal is
to get this pilot, get some local data, show some success. I
think that’s going to really move things forward.”
top
The Washington State Coalition for the Homeless:
More work needs
to be done
My last interview for this issue was with Washington State
Coalition for the Homeless (WSCH) Executive Director Mia Wells.
Our wide-ranging conversation touched on the many faces of
homelessness in our state, and the multiplicity of efforts that
are coming together to end it.
"We need to continue
to educate people about the benefits of actually
ending homelessness rather than continuing to manage
it.”
MIA WELLS, Executive Director, Washington
State Coalition for the Homeless (WSCH)
For the four years prior to taking on her current role last
year, Mia was responsible for running WSCH’s annual May state
conference on ending homelessness, which has evolved into a
truly dynamic exchange of support, great ideas, and best
practices. In 2007, the conference hosted 450 participants. WSCH
was founded in 1984 to provide state leadership in addressing
homelessness; it is governed by dues-paying county
representatives, and has always had strong representation across
Washington State.
Maintaining gains
Like so many others who contributed their perspectives to this
issue, Mia is encouraged that the re-entry of ex-offenders is an
issue that the state is finally beginning to give the attention
it requires. “Reentry is a hot topic right now, and legislators
are paying attention to that,” she says. She points to a 2006
Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) report that
provided a snapshot of the relationship between re-entry,
homelessness, and recidivism. In this study, 34% of those who
re-offended did not have stable housing. And of those on parole
who re-offended, 49% were unstably housed.
During the last legislative session, Engrossed Substitute Senate
Bill (ESSB) 6157 was passed. It is targeted at re-entry
initiatives for offenders released from corrections facilities.
Housing is a key piece of the bill’s mandate. Under ESSB 6157,
CTED has authorized the Re-entry Housing Pilot Program (RHPP),
which provides grants to eligible organizations that offer
supportive housing and services for jail and prison offenders
under supervision and referred by DOC.
“We’re really excited about this,” Mia says. The $3.5 million
for several pilot programs “is a step in the right direction.
Clearly more work needs to be done.”
Re-entry for the homeless, as Mia points out, has many aspects.
Whether it’s gaining secure employment and financial security or
regaining a sense of stability and well being, whether it’s
getting out of prison or transitioning from foster care to
independence, an individual or family’s successful re-entry from
homelessness can truly be a rocky road without the right kind of
support. A case in point is the Independent Youth Housing
Program established during the last session, which provides
re-entry support, in the form of housing vouchers, to youth
exiting foster care. What was also passed was the complement to
that bill, SB 5305/HB 1201, which extends Medicaid healthcare
coverage to these vulnerable youth until age 21.
It’s important to remember, Mia says, that these ex-offender and
foster care programs are limited, pilot programs. “It’s going to
be really important to stay on top of these, to make sure we ask
for more funding and make it permanent in a timely manner, so we
don’t lose any ground.”
We still need more housing
Many efforts are coming together, and as Mia sees it, “it’s only
a matter of time, as everyone steps up more and more,
increasingly, our communities will realize that homelessness is
a community-wide problem. We need to continue to educate people
about the benefits of actually ending homelessness rather than
continuing to manage it.”
When I spoke with Mia, she had just left a meeting with the
regional healthcare workers’ union, SEIU Healthcare 1199NW. This
union was instrumental in getting the 1/10th of one percent
Mental Health Tax Ordinance passed in King County last November,
which will help fund vital community services to people coping
with mental illness and chemical dependency. These union members
are one great example of people who understand the complexity of
the issues that impact homelessness, and are working to change
the dynamic. SEIU 1199NW members have also been big supporters
of affordable housing issues in Washington State across the
board. “They spent a lot of time with us, helping us to figure
out how to do a better job of grass roots mobilizing, and
enlisting support,” Mia says.
Summing up
Currently, there’s a lot of excitement about our progress.
Here’s what we have going for us: a dedicated and hard-working
team that includes state officials, county governments, homeless
advocates, technical assistance providers, private foundations,
employment initiative consultants, and housing and social
services providers. Our state government is committing
significant financial resources. County and city governments are
stepping up to the task. And our philanthropists, nonprofit
funding agencies, and business leaders are demonstrating
incredible vision and generosity.
In every community across Washington State, large or small, so
many of the same strategies, opportunities, and qualities for
ending homelessness apply: Vision, prevention, education,
employment, coordinated efforts, using resources creatively,
tracking results. But ultimately, we need more of these
resources.
As those I’ve interviewed for this newsletter stress, we must
continue to coordinate communications and synergies among
partners, so that resources are used effectively and homeless
individuals and families can secure the homes they need. We need
to create more employment solutions for homeless people. We need
to strengthen our focus on homeless prevention. We also need to
step up our efforts to help underserved segments, such as
ex-offenders released from prisons and jails, who fall back into
homelessness.
To meet our state’s 10-Year Goal, we need more housing, pure and
simple. And, to get that, homelessness needs to matter to voters
and taxpayers—in other words—everyday people. We’re on our way
but we still have a long way to go. |
